


I'm So Sick of That Same Old Love

by madsuptonogood



Series: Same Old Love [1]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Aromantic, Aromantic Character, Asexual Character, Asexuality, Asexuality Spectrum, Gen, Sexuality Crisis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-21
Updated: 2015-12-21
Packaged: 2018-05-08 04:36:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5483681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madsuptonogood/pseuds/madsuptonogood
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Niall settles back down where he had been sitting before, picking up the pamphlet that had attacked him. It was one of the pamphlets dedicated to a sexual orientation. It was set up like all the others, except instead of the cover being rainbow colored or dark pink, purple, and blue, this one was black, grey, white, and purple. It read “Asexuality 101”. </p>
<p>Or the university au where even when you think you've figured yourself out, there's still more to learn.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'm So Sick of That Same Old Love

**Author's Note:**

  * For [secretspeller](https://archiveofourown.org/users/secretspeller/gifts).



> Hello! This is my first time posting a fic on here, and hopefully it's not too bad. Thank you to Sam for helping me with some of the initial ideas for this and encouraging me as I raced to finish this at the last second.
> 
> To @secretspeller I ended up doing a mix of two of your prompts because I can't resist ace Niall and aro Harry. I'm sorry that I'm a terrible terrible person and I procrastinated very heavily on this and ended up making it a lot shorter than I meant to and cutting out the part of your prompt about him also figuring out a pain kink of some sort at the same time, and if it's cool with you, I would love to do a second part to this where that idea is explored.
> 
> I'm sorry this fic isn't brit pic'd or beta'd, as I said I was horribly lazy about this and waited until the very last minute. I apologize for any mistakes, and I'll go through and edit it another time. I'm also very American, so there's going to be an odd mix of what British lingo I know and the American phrases that I use. 
> 
> I hope you all enjoy it!

“Shit! Shit, shit, shit!” a low voice curses. Niall jolts awake, rubbing at his bleary eyes and taking in the mess of papers strewn across the floor and his roommate, Harry, frantically sorting through them, his long curls falling in his face and his backpack slipping down from his shoulder to the crook of his arm, hanging open. Niall wonders how nothing has fallen out yet.

Seeing that Harry isn’t in any actual danger or pain, Niall flops back onto his bed, groaning and throwing his arm over his face to block out the morning light filtering into the room. 

“Ha!” Harry makes a small sound of victory, and Niall moves his arm enough to see Harry holding a pack of papers triumphantly in his hand before shoving it into his back pack and pushing his hair out of his face. Harry turns towards the door, calling out as he leaves, “Don’t forget about your intro to linguistics lecture again!”

Niall groans again, rolling over to press his face into his pillow and drifting back to sleep. He startles awake fifteen minutes later when the alarm on his phone goes off. Niall swipes at his phone blindly until the noise stops and settles back down, telling himself he’ll get up in a minute and get ready. A minute stretches into five, when his alarm goes off yet again, finally waking Niall up enough to get out of bed. He stumbles around the room gathering up what he needs for his shower and almost brains himself on Harry’s desk slipping on some of the paper as he heads to the bathroom. 

Niall trips his way to his bed when he loses his footing again on the paper when he gets back from his shower, despite feeling much more awake than he did before. Looking at the clock on the microwave, Niall decides that he has enough time before lecture to pick up most of the papers; considering how many times he almost fell, he can’t imagine the catastrophe that would be Harry trying to walk over all the papers.   
As he picks them up and separates them into articles and pamphlets, Niall glances over some of the titles. Almost all of them are related to the LGBTQIA+ Community or issues within it, minus a couple handouts from Harry’s classes or returned papers, which isn’t all that surprising. Harry is a second year sociology major, and after a rather underwhelming visit to their school’s LGBTQIA Center during their first year, Harry decided that he was going to take charge this year and revamp the whole center and as many of its programs as possible. In order to prepare everything, Harry spent most of the summer searching the internet and printing out all the information he could find, as well as getting into contact with LGBTQIA Centers from other universities to ask for advice and tips. Having been Harry’s roommate since freshman year, Niall’s learned a lot too, reading some of the articles Harry finds or listening to Harry read things out loud. Niall doesn’t mind because he hasn’t taken any classes yet that discuss   
the community, having just started his second year as a communications major.

Niall starts when he feels a sharp sting from his index finger. He had been sorting the papers on autopilot, vaguely remembering each of the topics when he glanced at the titles, but the small papercut on his finger makes him refocus. Niall shakes out his hand and roots through his dresser for 

the box of band aids his mother had insisted on him buying just in case something happened.   
With the band aid in place and the wrapper in the trash, Niall settles back down where he had been sitting before, picking up the pamphlet that had attacked him. It was one of the pamphlets dedicated to a sexual orientation. It was set up like all the others, except instead of the cover being rainbow colored or dark pink, purple, and blue, this one was black, grey, white, and purple. It read “Asexuality 101”. Niall’s face scrunched up as he tried to place the term; he’s pretty sure he’s heard Harry mention it before. He’s about to open the pamphlet when his phone buzzes violently on Harry’s desk. Niall curses when he looks at the notification from his calendar telling him that his lecture starts in thirty minutes. The lecture hall is across campus from the dorms, and Niall only has fifteen minutes to get there if he wants to be early enough to get a good seat. He stuffs the pamphlet in the back pocket of his jeans and slings his backpack over his shoulder, looking at the floor and deciding that Harry should be able to   
survive. Niall curses again and rushes down the stairs when he realizes he still has to find his bike.

*~*~*~*~*

“Oi, oi!” 

Niall’s head snaps towards the familiar call, spotting all his friends gathered around one of the tables outside one of the school’s dining areas. The shortest and the most energetic of his friends, Louis, was standing on the table and waving at Niall to get his attention. Niall laughs to himself and heads towards the table, shaking his head as Louis continues to yell at him. 

“Niall! Get your arse over here so we can start eating!” Louis cups his hands around his mouth to try and project his voice farther even though Niall is barely ten feet away. Louis squawks indignantly as Liam, ever the responsible one of the group, tries to pull him down and back into his seat at the round table. “Payno, what do you think you’re doin’?”

Liam tugs at the back of Louis’ shirt a little more insistently and whispers like he’s trying not to draw more attention to their small group. “Louis please, just sit down, you’re being disruptive.”

Harry pulls lightly at one of Louis’ pant legs and smiles up at him, “C’mon Lou, stop throwing a tantrum and eat your lunch.”

Next to Harry, Zayn, the final member of their friend group, snorts and smirks at Louis when he glares down at him.   
Finally Niall reaches them and Louis hops down from the table top and pulls Niall down into the seat next to him, keeping one arm slung around Niall’s shoulders. Louis then promptly ignores Niall as he digs into the sandwich he had bought from the dining service and pesters Liam. Harry and Zayn are in deep discussion too, heads bent together over one of Zayn’s sketchbooks, food forgotten off to the side. Niall can’t help the wide smile that stretches practically ear to ear as he takes in all of his friends. Even though they’re barely half way through the quarter, their workload often keeps them from hanging out together like this as often as they want. Zayn, Liam, and Louis are third years delving farther into their upper division courses, English for Zayn and Louis and Economics for Liam, and trying to gain experience through jobs and internships. Harry and Niall are both second years, still finishing up most of their lower division intro classes, but Harry fills most of his free time trying to get the LGBTQIA Center running better and Niall splits his time between helping Harry and trying to get a head start on internships and work. Harry and Niall are still roommates in the residence halls so they see each other all the time. Liam is a Resident Advisor for the second year in a row; last year he was the RA for Harry and Niall’s floor, which is where they met. Harry was an especially social first year, and had a habit of not only greeting Liam whenever he saw him, but stopping him for an in depth conversation about something he heard in one of his classes and life, cementing their friendship. They’re all in the same building, but on different floors this year, so they don’t see each other as much as they did last year. Louis and Zayn have been roommates all three years of university, so they still see each other constantly. They don’t see Liam as much as Harry and Niall do, but they make sure to meet up with him once a week on the lawn behind the art building. Zayn and Louis had started the tradition back in their first year, and Liam joined them after Zayn had made friends with him in a class they shared together. With Harry constantly hanging around Liam, he ended up meeting Louis and Zayn. They quickly adopted him into their group after Louis figured out how easy it was to mess with Harry by suggesting ludicrous ideas when Harry started discussions with Liam. Harry would bring Niall whenever they would all meet up, and a year later, they were all as close to inseparable. 

“Niall, you all right there mate?” Louis asks, squeezing the back of Niall’s neck gently.

Niall focuses his attention back on Louis, then looks around to notice the rest of the table looking at him. 

Niall rubs at his eyes and nods, “Yeah, just a little tired. Woke up to that one cursing and papers all over the room again.”

Harry blushes when Niall nods his head in his direction. “I am so sorry about that. I woke up late and almost forgot that paper I had been working on all week for one of my sociology classes. I tried to grab it off my desk, but I knocked down all of the other papers on my desk too.”

“I about died slipping on all those papers. I even have a paper cut from when I was cleaning them up!” Niall waves his hurt hand in Harry’s face to prove his point.

Harry shrugs his shoulders with a sheepish smile. “At least you woke up in time for class?”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Niall grumbles, relaxing a little when Louis squeezes the back of his neck again, some of the stress from the morning fading. 

“Here, lunch is on me,” Harry passes Niall a personal size pizza. “Are we even now?”  
Niall’s face lights up and he immediately starts eating. He doesn’t even bother to swallow before saying, “Yeah we’re even.”  
Harry winces at the globs of food he sees and sets his own sandwich to the side, turning to Zayn to continue their conversation from earlier. 

The rest of their lunch stays the same; everyone talked about random things until they had to start leaving for their afternoon classes.

*~*~*~*~*

Niall doesn’t even think about the pamphlet again until a couple days later when he’s doing laundry. 

He walks around the room, picking up the random pieces of clothing that he’s left lying around; a shirt hanging off his bed frame at the foot of the bed, some socks just peeking out from under his bed, a crumpled pair of pants that he hadn’t realized he’d shoved down at the end of his bed, and the jeans, on the floor right next to his laundry hamper, just having missed when he tossed them towards the hamper earlier that week. He double checks all the pockets for anything he left in them, having learned his lesson after a forgotten sharpie (probably Zayn’s or Louis’) left the whole load of laundry with black ink splotches. Niall pulls out the folded pamphlet and stares at it for a moment, still trying to recall what he and Harry had discussed because he is absolutely positive that they had talked about something like this before. The first thing he sees when he opens the pamphlet are large bold letters exclaiming:

“AN ASEXUAL PERSON IS SOMEONE WHO DOES NOT EXPERIENCE SEXUAL ATTRACTION.”

Which makes him pause, because even though he knew that asexual didn’t necessarily mean the same thing it did in biology, he hadn’t really realized that that’s what asexuality was. He’s not even completely sure what that means; “doesn’t experience sexual attraction,” how does that even work? Niall sits on the ground, leaning back against his bed frame and glances over the rest of the pamphlet before spreading it out carefully and starting at the beginning. Below the bolded sentence is a more detailed explanation.

“Sexual attraction is hard to define, as everyone experiences it differently, but in its simplest form, sexual attraction is a strong urge to do sexual things with a particular person. Asexual people, or aces, usually don’t experience this feeling. Asexuality is generally defined by a lack of feeling sexual urges for another person. This is not to say that asexual people have no libido or cannot experience arousal; libido and attraction are two different things. 

Asexuality is also not the same as celibacy; celibacy is a personal choice to abstain from having sex, usually until marriage. Asexuality, just like any other sexual orientation, is not a choice, but more so something someone just is. Asexuality is also not sexual repression or aversion. It’s not sexual dysfunction. It’s not loss of libido. Asexuality is not fear of intimacy or the inability to find a partner. Asexuality is when someone does not experience sexual attraction, and that’s it.”

“Jeeze, sounds like they get a lot of flak,” Niall mumbles to himself and keeps reading.

“Asexuality Spectrum  
There are many different ways to be and experience asexuality; it’s a little different for everyone, which is why there’s the Asexuality Spectrum. On one end, there are the people who experience sexual attraction (sometimes referred to as allosexuals) and on the other end there are asexuals who experience no sexual attraction whatsoever. In the middle are demisexuals, people who do not experience sexual attraction unless they have formed a strong emotional bond with the person first. Everyone else in between are mostly known as gray-asexuals or graysexuals, people who experience sexual attraction irregularly or do not feel the need to act on it, or any combination really. The possibilities of how to experience or be asexual are limitless, and people are still finding new ways to describe how they experience it, as well as coming up with new terms.”

Niall gets distracted by the picture of a couple, looking to the last page before finishing the other half of the second page.

“Aces and Dating  
Asexual people can and do date and participate in romantic relationships. Sex doesn’t make a relationship, and despite what many people believe, it is possible to have a relationship without it. Just like people can have sex without being in a relationship or having romantic feelings for the other person, people can have meaningful romantic relationships without sex. Many asexual people feel romantic attraction even though they do not feel sexual attraction. There are several different types of attraction: romantic, sexual, and aesthetic, among others. Sexual attraction, as defined earlier, is an attraction that makes people desire sexual contact or shows sexual interest in other people. Romantic attraction is similar except that romantic contact or interactions are desired. So if someone experiences sexual attraction towards another person, they want to perform some kind of sexual act with that person, while someone that experiences romantic attraction towards someone else would want to do something less sexual and more romantic, like hold hands or date. Aesthetic attraction is when someone appreciates or recognizes the appearance of someone else; for example, they would think that someone else is cute or beautiful (this is separate from sexual and romantic attraction). Often times, the different types of attraction go hand in hand and are felt at the same time, however, they can be felt separately; one type being felt while another type is not.   
Many asexual people feel romantic attraction, and identify as having a sexual orientation and a romantic orientation. There are as many romantic orientations as there are sexual orientations. Some of them are different, but many of them are the same, such as heteroromantic, homoromantic, biromantic, panromantic, demiromantic, grayromantic, and aromantic. They all mean the same as their sexual counterparts, just in the romantic sense. Sexual and romantic orientations don’t always match, as many people are asexual and alloromantic, or aromantic and allosexual.”

Underneath that section is just a list of websites that can be used to look up more information, so Niall just skims over it, flipping to the back where there’s a quick paragraph on jokes about cake in the community and other asexual related jokes. He laughs quietly, thinking about how of course Harry had to choose the pamphlet with corny puns on it. He goes back to the dating section, skimming it again and pausing at the term ‘aromantic’. Niall’s pretty sure he’s heard Harry talk about that orientation too, but he still can’t quite put his finger on it. He remembers Harry explaining it to him, but not much else. Niall glances over the rest of the pamphlet again and realizes he missed a section on the second page.

“Aces and Sex  
While many asexual people don’t have sex, some aces do. Being asexual means that someone doesn’t experience sexual attraction or experiences it irregularly compared to an allosexual person, but it is not a reflection on the person’s libido or whether or not they want to have sex. Asexual people can still become sexually aroused and have sex, but it usually happens through means other than just attraction, such as touch. Some aces like to have sex, while others do not and some are indifferent to it. Asexual people are just as capable of masturbating and having sex as any other person and whether or not they do so is their choice. No matter their stance on sex, an asexual person is asexual if that’s how they want to identify. An asexual person is not more asexual than another because they have not had sex and the other one has. Whether they have had sex, they want to have sex, they masturbate, or they have sexual fantasies, if they identify as asexual, then they are. Asexuality is about attraction, not action.”

“That’s-” Niall pauses. It’s not necessarily that he assumed asexual people couldn’t have sex, there’s just something about the paragraph that’s making him feel surprised and a little out of sorts.

He doesn’t get long to think about it though, because Harry opens the door, talking loud to be heard over the noise in the hallway and surprising Niall. 

“I swear to god Niall, that man has it out for me!” Harry whines, dropping his back pack on the floor and flopping face down on his bed. 

“What happened today?” Niall asks, letting out a deep breathe to try and calm himself down from the scare Harry gave him walking in. ‘There’s no reason to be so on edge, it’s just Harry,’ he thinks to himself. He smooths out and then refolds the asexuality pamphlet and sticks it in his back pocket again as he stands, listening half-heartedly to Harry’s mumbling.

“I have no idea what you said mate, you’re just talking into the bed.”

“I said,” Harry says pointedly, turning his head to look at Niall. “My sociology TA called on me three times in discussion and barely picked on anyone else. That’s the third discussion in a row he’s focused on me.”

“Maybe he’s still holding a grudge against you for calling him out in front of the whole class and then spending the rest of the discussion on your phone that first week,” Niall pats Harry’s leg as he passes him and grabs the small basket with all of his laundry stuff from their shared closet. 

“I haven’t been on my phone since! And I’m not the only who has their phone out either, but he never calls on those people,” Harry exclaims.

“I don’t know what to tell you Haz,” Niall calls out as he walks out the door, laundry hamper in hand.

He doesn’t see the frown Harry shoots him when he sees the pamphlet sticking out of his back pocket, recognizing the familiar colors. 

*~*~*~*~*

Niall can’t stop thinking about it. 

It’s been a week since he first read the asexuality pamphlet, and he can’t seem to focus on anything else. 

He’s read that darn thing over twenty times, and eventually he had to shove it to the back of one of his desk drawers so he would stop looking at it and focus on his coursework. Instead of actually doing his work though, Niall gets distracted looking at different websites and blogs about asexuality. 

He started with the websites listed in the pamphlet, the really official sources like AVEN. Niall didn’t spend too much time on there, just reading through more of the basic information like definitions. He tried to participate in the forums and chatrooms there, but he never knew what to say. Then he made his way through the less shady looking websites that a google search brought up, and eventually made his way to the assortment of blogs that people had made to help spread information and answer questions about asexuality. 

Even when he’s not actively looking for information, he keeps seeing things pop up when he’s looking through other websites and gets lost on the internet looking through all of the different links or he thinks he hears it mentioned in a conversation somewhere and stops to listen. His sleep schedule is all over the place because he tries to look at it when no one else is around, which means he stays up late waiting for Harry to go to sleep, and then stays up even later reading everything.

It’s a Wednesday, the busiest day of the week for Niall because most of his classes and some of his discussions meet on Wednesdays, and he waited till midnight for Harry to fall asleep before he started looking through more blogs. It’s one in the morning, his eyes are burning from staring at his computer screen for so long in the dark and he has one earbud in listening quietly to music to help keep him awake. He’s distracted enough that he doesn’t hear the squeak of Harry’s bed as the other boy gets up and crosses the three feet between their beds. Niall almost knocks his computer over jerking in surprise when Harry yanks down the blanket Niall had thrown over himself to try and block the light of his laptop from bothering Harry. 

“All right, we need to have a talk,” Harry says, his voice gruff from what little sleep he had gotten and the blanket still clutched in his hand.

“Harry!” Niall tugs out his earbud and hugs his computer to his chest. “What are you doing up? I thought you were asleep?”  
Harry gives him an unimpressed look, “I should be the one asking you that.”

Harry sighs and sits on the edge of Niall’s bed when Niall does nothing more than stare up at him, a frantic look in his eyes. “Ni, what’s been going on? You’ve been acting really weird all week.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about mate. Nothing’s wrong and I’ve been the same as always,” Niall looks down and traces over the edges of his laptop. 

“Don’t know what I’m talking about?” Harry sounds incredulous. “You’ve been staying up late to stay on your computer, you’ve been spending less time with Louis, Liam, Zayn, and me, and when you do hang out with us, you’re always distracted and you look so tired. Louis thinks you’re sick and it’s taken all of us to talk him out of moving into our room to nurse you back to health! I’m honestly tempted to let him at this point.”

Harry sighs again when Niall just shrugs, still not looking at him. He doesn’t know what to say because it’s not like Harry’s wrong. Niall has been skipping out on hanging out with the other boys, making excuses about being tired or having course work he needs to do so he can look up more information. When he can’t get out of it and does spend time with them, he usually gets lost in his thoughts and basically ignores them. It’s just, he can’t stop thinking about it. At first, it was just about finding out as much information as possible and understanding what asexuality is. But then Niall found the blogs where the posts were mainly the blogger answering questions that people had submitted to them about being asexual and anything related to it. And all those questions and stories got him thinking. Because some of them described things that he feels. And that’s just. That’s something to think about.

Niall looks up a little when Harry gently grabs his knee, looking at his chest rather than the bed. Harry asks just as gently, “Is this about being asexual?”

Niall’s head jerks up at that, his heart pounding loudly in his chest and eyes wide. Harry takes in Niall’s harsh breathes and white knuckle grip on his laptop and squeezes Niall’s knee in hopes it will help calm the other boy down. It doesn’t.

After about a minute, Niall opens and closes his mouth a couple times before finally whispering, “How?”

“I saw a paper hanging out of your back pocket last week and recognized the colors as the asexuality flag,” Harry explains. This just makes Niall grip his computer tighter, so Harry reaches up for the laptop, “Here, let’s just take this and put it where you won’t break it.”

It takes a second to pry Niall’s hands off, but when he frees it, Harry puts the computer in the corner of the bed and leaves it open so there’s still light in the room. With nothing to hold, Niall crosses his arms of his chest, gripping onto his arms instead and looking down at the bed again.

“It’s ok if you are, you know,” Harry tries to say, but Niall looks up again, still looking panicked.

“I’m not!” He says it a little louder than he meant to, surprising Harry. Niall deflates after a second, looking away again and adding in a quieter voice, “I mean, I don’t think I am.”

“That’s ok too,” Harry placates. 

“I-I don’t think I am. It just. It took me so long to figure out that I’m gay, I can’t- I can’t be something else. I already told my parents and all of you guys that I’m gay, I can’t just go back and say ‘oh never mind, it turns out I don’t like anyone at all’. I don’t even know if I am asexual! I just thought not liking it with girls was because I was gay,” Niall’s voice starts out soft, but steadily gets louder and more frantic as he tries to sift through his thoughts and feelings. He doesn’t think he’s making a whole lot of sense and can’t help but run his fingers through his hair as his mind races. He can’t do this again, he already went through his sexuality crisis the summer before his first year of uni.

Niall had started noticing that things were different at the beginning of secondary school. His friends had started noticing the girls they all went to school with a year or so before, and suddenly it was all they could talk about. They constantly talked about who they thought was the hottest, who they thought would be willing to do the most with them, and who they actually had done stuff with. The further into secondary they went, the more they talked about sex; daring each other to buy racy magazines or condoms when they stopped at the drug store for snacks or betting on who would say yes to going on a date with them. At first Niall could ignore it and get away with agreeing with them when he thought a girl was cute. But eventually his friends started to notice and tease him for his lack of experience, and he didn’t really know what to do. He knew what was expected of boys his age, but he didn’t feel the way his friends did. He didn’t really feel the urge to kiss any of the girls, much less do anything else with them, but he knew that was what he was supposed to feel.

So he started going out with girls he thought were cute; he’d ask them out, maybe take them to dinner or the movie theater, and the girls were usually more than happy to do the things his mates always talked about. Niall would meet up with his friends and they would pester him until he told them what happened, but he didn’t really see what the big deal was. Niall didn’t understand why his friends made such a big deal about all of it; if he was being completely honest, it was all actually kind of weird. He’d started noticing that some of the boys were cute too, and he’d much rather go around kissing them and holding their hands than he would any of the girls’. His last year before university Niall finally stopped going out with girls, but he didn’t admit that he was gay until that summer after debating with himself all year and doing as much research into it as he could. He spent the summer slowly coming out to his parents, which thankfully went over pretty well. After all of that he had just written off his disinterest in sex with girls as not being attracted to them. He’s not sure if he likes sex with guys better, though. He got caught up in the excitement of starting university and making new friends, and the opportunity just never came up. That’s what he tells himself, at least. 

Niall’s brought out of his thoughts when he feels Harry pull Niall’s hands away from his hair and wrap him up in his arms, whispering softly into his ear, “Hey, hey, it’s ok. You’re ok. You don’t have to come out to anyone you’re not ready to come out to, all right? You don’t ever have to tell anyone if you don’t want to. It’s ok if how you identify changes, you know. School and media and all of that don’t really talk about being anything but being straight or gay, and it’s hard to figure yourself out when you’re not given all the information. It’s ok that you identified as gay first because you didn’t know what asexuality was, that you didn’t know it was an option. I know it’s scary, but I get it-”

At that, Niall tries to squirm out of Harry’s arms, still sounding panicked, but a little angry too.

“How would you know what it feels like Harry? You’re always out having sex with everyone and everything! I don’t think I’ve ever met someone who has as much sex as you! How would you know what this feels like?”

Harry goes tense, his words stilted. “I may not know what exactly it feels like trying to figure out if I’m asexual or not, but I had my fair share of problems figuring out being aromantic. I had to go through figuring out that it was ok to like boys as much as I liked girls, and then realizing that it wasn’t just boys and girls, that gender really didn’t make a difference. And after getting through that I had to figure out why I didn’t feel the same way as the people I dated; that the physical stuff was amazing and fun but I wasn’t matching up with them when it came to emotions. That my partner always ended up liking me more than I liked them and that I couldn’t offer them what they wanted. And after finding out that all of that meant that I’m aromantic and finally feeling like maybe I knew who I was and maybe I wasn’t weird and broken, I had to go through my partners judging me when I came out to them as aromantic because I felt it was important that we were on the same page and knew what to expect. I had to deal with my partners accusing me of using them, using their bodies, of being emotionless, being a robot, being told things like I’ll always be alone and that the way I feel isn’t natural. I had to accept that I broke the heart of someone I cared about very much because I couldn’t offer them the love they wanted and they didn’t understand why I couldn’t. So no, I don’t know what exactly you’re going through, but I have a little bit of an idea of what you’re afraid of.”

“Harry, I,” Niall starts, but he sounds lost and small, like all of the fight in him disappeared. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean-”   
Harry cuts him off, the hard edge to his voice still there, “I know.” 

They sit there for a few minutes in the dark of the room, the light from Niall’s laptop having faded when it went to sleep from inactivity. Eventually Niall presses closer to Harry and whispers, “I’m scared.”

The tenseness bleeds out of Harry at that, and he hugs Niall impossibly closer. “I know.”  
After another minute, Harry lets him go and stands up. He closes Niall’s computer and moves it over to Niall’s desk so it’s out of the way and rearranges Niall’s blanket so it’s covering him. 

“It’s late and we have class tomorrow, so you should try to get some sleep, all right?” Harry instructs, running his hand through Niall’s hair to try and comfort him a little more. 

Niall nods and shifts down so he’s actually lying down. He grabs Harry’s hand when he turns to get back into his own bed. 

“Sorry, sorry, but do you think you could stay with me? I don’t want to be alone right now.”

Harry gives Niall a small smile and nods, “Yeah, I can stay. Budge up would you?”

Niall scoots back so he’s against the wall and flips his blanket back so Harry can slip in underneath it. They just lay next to each other, Harry dropping off to sleep almost immediately. The warmth coming off Harry helps calm Niall down and keep him from getting lost in his thoughts again, drifting off not long after Harry.

*~*~*~*~*

They don’t talk about it; at least not in the long, emotionally draining way they did that night. Mostly Harry makes little comments about being aromantic and recommends more resources and blogs about asexuality to Niall.   
It’s a couple days later, Saturday morning when all of the other boys are sleeping off a night out at Louis and Zayn’s that Niall had found his way out of, that he’s going through one of the blogs Harry had mentioned. He had been looking through all the different links in their FAQ when he came across this post:

“Okay so the aro ace spectrum really is a goddamned spectrum and it’s expanding every day it seems like. Individuals are coming up with new terms to define certain ace or aro attractions and it’s really cool in my opinion! Like, in contrast to other orientations that define WHO one is attracted to, ace and aro orientations define HOW someone is attracted to (an)other individual(s).  
So me personally, I like to deal with things in lists for organisation. This is why I did the pronoun lists a while back! So I’m doing something similar for all aromantic and asexual identities I know of right now. I know many people are uncomfortable with automatically group aro and ace orientations together but they do overlap a lot seeing as they both describe how someone is attracted to others with the difference being sexually vs. romantically. So hopefully this isn’t a big issue, otherwise I’ll change it up and make two separate posts.

ASEXUALITY SPECTRUM  
Asexual: Experiencing no sexual attraction  
Demisexual: Experiencing sexual attraction only after a close bond has been formed  
Grey-asexual: Experiencing sexual attraction rarely or infrequently  
Akoisexual: Experiencing sexual attraction but having the feelings fade after the feelings are reciprocated. Akoisexual can also be further defined as not caring if the feelings of sexual attraction are reciprocated or not  
Recipsexual: Experiencing sexual attraction only after realising someone is sexually attracted to you  
Kalossexual: Desiring a sexual relationship but never feeling sexual attraction towards anyone.  
Requiessexual: limited or no sexual attraction/interest/activity due to some form of emotional exhaustion. Emotional exhaustion may be the result of previous sexual endeavors and past experiences dealing with sexuality, or from something else just as emotionally draining.

AROMANTIC SPECTRUM  
Aromantic: Experiencing no romantic attraction  
Demiromantic: Experiencing romantic attraction only after a close bond has been formed  
Grey-aromantic: Experiencing romantic attraction infrequently  
Akoiromantic: Experiencing romantic attraction but having the feelings fade after the feelings are reciprocated. Akoiromantic can also be further defined as not caring if the feelings of romantic attraction are reciprocated or not  
Quoiromantic: An attraction to (an)other individual where romantic or platonic attraction is indistinguishable  
Reciproromantic: Experiencing romantic attraction only after realising someone is romantic attracted to you  
Kalosromantic: desiring a romantic relationship but never feeling romantic attraction towards anyone.  
Platoniromantic: Attraction where an individual feels no distinction between romantic and platonic attraction  
Requiesromantic: limited or no romantic attraction/interest/activity due to some form of emotional exhaustion. Emotional exhaustion may be the result of previous romantic endeavors and past experiences dealing with romance, or from something else just as emotionally draining.

NOTES AND CREDIT  
-Akoisexual/romantic are better known as lithsexual/romantic. The two words gained a new prefix proposed by tumblr user cisphobeofficial because the lith- prefix (meaning stone) was found to be appropriative of lesbian culture  
-An alternate spelling of akoisexual/romantic is akoinesexual/romantic. Cloud doesn’t mind which of the two individuals use  
-Quoiromantic is also known as wtfromantic but was given a new prefix by tumblr user epocryphal who is a French-Canadian individual and opens it up for usage by everyone who finds it applies to them  
-Recipsexual/romantic were coined by tumblr user knuxouge  
-Kalossexual/romantic were coined by tumblr user acelyssie  
-Platoniromantic was coined by tumblr user novusnova  
-An alternate spelling of platoniromantic is platromantic   
-Requissexual/romantic were coined by tumblr user gay4dragons”

And he’s not sure what it is, but something just feels better, feels right about saying he’s ace. There had been something so daunting about saying that he felt absolutely no sexual attraction and committing to the label before. But now that Niall knew there were so many different options, that saying he’s asexual could mean so many different things, makes it easier. He’s still not quite sure where he falls when it comes to the ace spectrum, but knowing that he has so many options, is relieving in a way that he can’t explain. 

When Harry comes back later that day, stumbling in from the last remnants of a hangover, Niall immediately gets up and hugs him tight, smiling hard as he says, “Harry, I think I’m ace.”

Harry just smiles, ruffling Niall’s hair and tells him, “I know.”

**Author's Note:**

> I just want to put some links to some of the sources that I used to help write all of the 'ace 101' bits of the fic, so they get credit and also so you all can go look up and find more info if you want to!
> 
> Some sites I used and that are good places to find info are:  
> http://www.matthewsplace.com/asexuality/ (I used the second part of the series, it was a really nice article)0  
> http://www.asexuality.org (AVEN's official website)  
> https://thethinkingasexual.wordpress.com/tag/asexual-spectrum/ (another good source for definitions of things)  
> https://lgbtq.unc.edu/asexuality-attraction-and-romantic-orientation (this defines the difference between attractions really well)  
> http://www.asexualityarchive.com/an-asexuals-guide-to-having-sex/ (if any of you are thinking about/have questions about sex, this was a really nice article)  
> Finally, the post at the end of the fic was originally made by tumblr user hyaenhart, and I found it through the tumblr blog asexualityexists. This post is actually what helped me accept my asexuality and figure out that I'm aro as well.
> 
> you can find me on tumblr at upinthefluff


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